Excellent spot, Joffe. This is the old Neighbourhood Watch in action. Now called Our Watch, I believe.

The BMW owner could well know this cyclist from an earlier entanglement. A bike and a trailer should be easy to spot as I don’t think that they are all that common. And they could well be a regular commuter along that cycle route. Watch out anyone going past on a bike with a trailer. You may well have a BMW owner chasing after you!

Joffe, I hope that, by not just reporting this to police, but also posting on this forum that we can locate this person to answer for what you have written.

This could be one of those “split second of misjudgement” moments. Like that woman that stuffed the cat into a wheelie bin. Or maybe it is a little more systemic.

Either way I hope this person on the bike will be mildly disturbed by the collateral damage of a criminal conviction, as I was, when I found this out.

Did you know that even for the most minor criminal convictions that there are huge knock-on effects?

I sort of knew about employment. Annually, at work I have to acknowledge, with barely contained alarm, that I have an obligation to tell my work about any criminal convictions. This happens around my appraisal. My eyes flicker for a moment while I think of all the times I somehow managed to contain myself from a split second of misjudgement and then breathe a sigh of relief that I get to keep my job for another year.

And education. I didn’t know that many courses, not just here in the UK, are closed to anyone with a criminal record.

I certainly didn’t know that they affect mortgages. Not that I care but many people do.

I certainly knew about travel. Particularly with the USA being quite the prickly ones.

And the truly surprising one is that a person with a conviction will find it rather difficult to get any type of insurance. Does it cancel their current insurances when a conviction handed out?

I am still rather staggered at the very high collateral damages coming from the simplest and sometimes most minor transgressions. The fine, and/or a short custodial sentence, can be the least of your worries.